After the Knicks lost to the Wizards earlier this week by coming undone on the game’s final two possessions, there were some observers that believed Mike Woodson should finally take the fall for his role in not only that particular loss, but also how his team had underachieved to this point in the season.

New York seemed to be on track for a victory, but then a bad defensive assignment with no one rotating to help saw Beno Udrih allow Bradley Beal to get to the rim uncontested for what ended up being the game-winning shot. The Knicks still had six seconds remaining and three timeouts left, but Woodson failed to use one which resulted in his team hesitating and Carmelo Anthony forcing up a wild floater from 27 feet out that had no chance of going in as time expired.

Woodson took the blame for not calling the timeout afterward, but former Knicks coach and current ESPN/ABC broadcaster Jeff Van Gundy believes that firing him over a single mistake like that would be somewhat ridiculous.

Van Gundy, on a conference call to promote ABC’s Christmas coverage, said Carmelo Anthony also was to blame for not getting the ball up the court quicker.

“The thing that irritated me, even if someone had the opinion it was a mistake, to go from mistake to quote fireable offense is ludicrous,” Van Gundy said. “You don’t cut or trade a player because they make a mistake in an NBA game. Nor should there be an over-reacton to what a coach does. What really needs to happen is to get their roster intact and when they’re healthy, play a lot of better.”

The health and the roster construction is a big part of the problem in New York, and after guiding the team to the second best record in the Eastern Conference a season ago, Woodson deserves a certain amount of leeway and shouldn’t be judged completely until he has all of his pieces in place.

Van Gundy did, however, say that there should be a philosophy in place on how to handle those types of situations, and that it should be installed from the beginning of training camp. Anthony said after the game that he was expecting a timeout, so maybe Woodson simply made a mistake. But that alone shouldn’t cost him his job when there are so many other issues with the team beyond that one game’s final possession.